In ‘Manchester of East’, disorder is order of the day
KANPUR: Listing civic issues of Kanpur is like opening Pandora’s Box. You think of solving one and the other will come up to sting you. Among plethora of problems that plague city, we enlist five main issues which have been troubling citizens here for a while.
UNRULY TRAFFIC
The traffic chaos all around the city has made the life of the people hell here. Despite several experiments by the traffic police and the Kanpur Municipal Corporation (KMC) to streamline the road traffic, nothing seemed to have changed here.
Long traffic jams in lanes, by-lanes and even on wide roads is a regular phenomenon here. Not just people fail to reach office in time; quite often they miss the train due to blockades on way to railway station.
“The main cause of congestion is violation of traffic rules. Nobody follows rules and signals. Drivers of e-rickshaws, autos and private city buses are in the habit of stopping their vehicles anywhere,” said Dr Neelam Trivedi, professor, DG Girls College.
DUG UP ROADS
Year-long digging up of roads for one or the other reason has disrupted the life of people here. The process is on for five long years and seemed to be unending. The digging makes the roads narrow which affect the traffic flow. “The municipal authorities must consider widening of roads to ease the ever growing vehicular traffic,” said Dr Sachidanand Tripathi, professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K).
ENCROACHMENTS
Encroachment on government land, especially on roadside pavements, is one big headache. The problem has got aggravated so much that pavements near main roads and in markets has almost got lost. “On several occasions, the encroachments were removed by the KMC but for want of regular monitoring of the encroachers, the problem remains as it is,” said Sushil Gupta, a tax consultant.
DELAYED PROJECTS
For a larger number of citizens the biggest problem of the city has been the failure of the municipal authorities in time-bound implementation of the development or beautification schemes.
POWER SUPPLY
Uninterrupted power supply at a stable voltage to industrial and the residential areas has become a dream for citizens. “Despite several assurances from ministers and senior officials of the power corporation and KESCo there has been no improvement in the power supply,” said Balram Narula, chairman, Hosiery and Textile Association.